What (I think) I know about marriage (so far)

Once upon a time, Brett Osterwyk proposed to me. It was a traditional romantic thing, with roses and tea-light candles and reminiscing over our two years of dating, all topped off with a very sparkly ring on my finger. He’s get-down-on-one-knee classy like that.

Anywhoo, you’d have to know a lot about me and a lot about our relationship to really understand where I was at that moment. The moment after he said, “Hanna, will you marry me?” It was the scariest million milliseconds of my life because for a while I’ve been discovering things about myself, and now when I think of marriage I can imagine so many different ways I could ruin it. Too analytical, I constantly imagine the worst-case scenario because the best-case scenario seems too good to obtain/deserve/to be true. After all, we all have very  limited amounts of awesome marriages to look up to.

I think that knowing yourself really well can be the best thing for your relationship, but a very scary thing for a mind like mine. I know that I am not patient, often unkind, and my words can be the antithesis of gentle. By saying “Yes” and “I do,” I could be setting myself up for epic failure.

So that’s the space I’m living in right now. What happens when you’re setting yourself up for failure? And not just that – we’re so excited about it. All of us engaged people are gladly and lovingly leaping into a life of a new kind of continuous failure. That’s such a weird and beautiful thing.

So this blog isn’t about me spreading wisdom or finding answers about marriage, and it’s not going to be about me planning our wedding. I wanted to write this because I have so many friends who are engaged or getting close to it, and I want to go through it together. My hope is to be open about what God is teaching me and how He is growing me during these precious months I have to prepare for marriage. Of course I know that I’m not going to be perfect at being a wife by the time my wedding day gets here. It will take our whole lives together… And all that stuff. But I still think this journey is important for me, probably for you, and definitely special if we share it together.